New York Times best-selling author Jodee Blanco is visiting with Russellville students this week, but not to promote her three books.

Blanco, the author of “Please Stop Laughing at Me,” “Please Stop Laughing at Us” and “Please Stop Laughing at Me Journal,” is telling the district of 5,200 students in detail the experiences she faced growing up in an attempt to defer bullying in the schools.

“Most kids don’t bully to be cruel,” she said. “They simply aren’t aware of the long-term damaging effects of their actions. So what I do as a survivor-turned-activist is I try to compassionatize kids and try to make the bullies understand that it’s not just joking around, that they’re causing lifelong damage.”

Blanco, who has spoken at schools for 10 years about bullying, said she doesn’t just direct her story to bullies, but the victims of bullying.

“I want the victims to say to themselves, ‘well if Jodee survived, we can too,’ and I want adults to be aware of what these kids are going through from the kids’ point of view,” she said.

Blanco, after telling stories of being ridiculed and laughed at in school — to the point of having snow shoved in her mouth while being held by three peers or having a dissected pig thrown at her face — said its those experiences that give her the ability to try to prevent similar situations happening to students today.

“I’m not someone who’s just talking the talk,” she said.. “I am a survivor of school bullying myself and I know what these kids are going through and I can speak to them from a place of deep empathy and experience, and I think as a result I’m able to reach them on a level that a lot of other experts would struggle to achieve.”